V - Hearts and Minds, S01E10

The Vs always seem a step ahead of the 5th Column. That may be because the 5th Column is human, is feeling emotions, and is driven in a non-mindless way to achieve its goals. Anna (Morena Baccarin) has no such scruples and even has some humans on her side, as well as many agents who appear human.

Father Jack (Joel Gretsch) has some issues about death. He put the entire 5th Column in danger when he warned Chad (Scott Wolf) about the danger to the V only shuttles. Not only was it foolish as how can he be sure that Chad, who spends so much time with the V, isn't seduced by Anna's power and personality, but also because there is no way that Anna would have put any human on a ship with V planning to come down to Earth to annihilate some humans.

The question of whose side Chad is really on gets tricky when this betrayal is considered. Even if feeding Anna information to make him seem like a compliant source is necessary, this particular move just put the 5th Column at the top of the FBI's most wanted list. And, along with Erica (Elizabeth Mitchell), Malik (Rekha Sharma) is now leading a government agency in the work of her queen - BTW, I hope you all saw it coming that she was the other V in the agency.

We are promised an interesting competition as the two leaders of that team have opposing intentions - Erica wants to save the world and the 5th Column, Malik wants whatever Anna wants.

Finally, although Lisa (Laura Vandervoort) supposedly passed the emotions test, her mother is becoming suspicious, and, when Lisa failed to achieve her target (well, actually, when Lisa let her target go), Anna had no qualms about beating her own daughter to a pulp to achieve a desired affect. Too bad Anna doesn't understand emotions well enough to realize that she may have lost her daughter's loyalty by that move.

I guess we will have to wait to see how everything develops!

The Good Wife - Mock, S01E20

And it's a win for Team Florrick. Peter (Chris Noth)'s desperate and crazy move of following Alicia (Julianna Margulies) out of the apartment to try to get her back seems to have worked, and I'm sure many of us have mixed feelings about this.

Peter's move, provoked by raw emotion rather than any kind of thought, is the sort of action we all wish a man would take to prove that he loves us. That is, if we ignore the fact that such a move was very likely to get him thrown in jail. And if his move didn't get your heart going with excitement and terror, his children's actions following his choice just made the heart melt. Grace (Makenzie Vega) and Zach (Graham Phillips) did what they could, including Zach breaking his arm, to keep their father home with them. And who didn't love Elsbeth Tascioni (True Blood's Carrie Preston)? Lawyers with that much sass get what they want very easily.

The rest of the episode didn't have the same flare or energy as those first moments, which was a little disappointing. I'm not sure if it was the unstructured nature of the case Alicia was pursuing on her own time, or the lack of interaction between the firm partners and the juniors, but it didn't have the same magic as The Good Wife usually does. But by the end of the episode, when returning to the family drama, we were back at the edge of our seats when a man who threatened to inform on Peter was found dead...apparently having committed suicide.

Despite one case I wasn't enthralled by, The Good Wife is one of the best new shows, and promises to have some great episode concluding the rest of the season, as well as more excitement in season 2.

Chuck - Chuck vs the Role Models, S03E15

Now that Chuck (Zachary Levi) and Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) are official, their first mission is to learn how to be a couple and be great spies. Regardless of how utterly irritating Operation Bartowski must be, you know that General Beckman (Bonita Friedericy) has a soft spot for this most unconventional team, and she wants them to continue succeeding.

This episode contained the most interesting menagerie. From a tiger in the bedroom, to a snake in the jungle, to Morgan (Joshua Gomez) presenting himself as bait, the wild was loose and dangerous. But, never fear, the Ring is still very active. Although we hadn't seen them since Daniel Shaw's death, they've still been plotting, and Devon (Ryan McPartlin) and Ellie (Sarah Lancaster) are the centre of that plan. Their trip to Africa to save the world (or at least the sick people in Africa) was cut short when Devon came down with Malaria. Only, it wasn't malaria. Let's just hope that whatever the Ring infected him with was only an illusion to get him back to Burbank.

In Burbank, the adventure was much more goofy and fun, as Chuck and Sarah had to face off with their supposed mentors, Laura and Craig Turner (Swoosie Kurtz and Fred Willard). 30 years in the business is not easy on a young, idealistic couple, revisiting the idea that maybe Chuck and Sarah should just run, but who wants that?

So, with 4 episodes left in the season, we are returning to a Ring-centric plotline. I just hope that Dr. SuperFantastic white person and his gorgeous and lovely wife can escape the line of fire Chuck and the Ring are putting them into. Thoughts?

Castle - Food to Die For, S02E22

While the tension between Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) and Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) continues to increase due to Beckett's new interest, Tom Demming (Michael Trucco), the murder mysteries remain consistently interesting and mysterious.

A renown chef is murdered, bathed in Nitroglycerin. Although Beckett and Castle follow multiple money trails, none of them lead to a believable story as to why the man was killed. When they finally realize that the motive was love, Beckett and Castle find themselves talking to other people, yet again, and reaching the same conclusions apart at the same time. There is no denying the bond the two share, nor the similarities is the way their minds process information.

We, the viewers, know how great Castle and Beckett's chemistry is, and we know how great a couple they would make. If you've read Heat Wave, you know that they could become a couple and the writers could still keep their relationship entertaining, and not end up losing their audience a la Moonlighting. Yet, what kind of impression does Castle generally give about his ability to be in a committed relationship? His two marriages don't speak very well for him, and when he speaks about them, the impression only worsens.

And then Demming was introduced. He's hot and passionate and a good guy. There is no reason that Kate shouldn't go for him; their love for Chinese food unites them forever. But in the back of her mind, a little voice is saying "What about Castle?" Which is the right risk to take? Should Beckett commit to Demming, knowing what that relationship is likely to bring to her, or should she throw that away in favour of the adventure that would be a relationship with Castle? Can we really blame the girl that she probably wants to do both?

The Mentalist - Red All Over, S02E20

Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) may be an incredible clever and charismatic guy who always seems to know who committed a crime and is always able to get a confession from that person, though not always through the most legal of means, but sometimes his actions are callous and cruel.

Although Jane improved on his crazy techniques this episode - he actually informed the rest of the CBI team what he was planning on doing to gain a confession from the murderer - his actions put a little girl at risk. Not at physical risk, I doubt Jane would do such a thing anyway, and Lisbon (Robin Tunney) would not have gone along with such a thing, but the child was at risk of emotional damage.

Her father was murdered, and by her grandfather of all people. Not even for the right reasons. The family patriarch had no qualms about his son driving him out of a position of power in the family business, but when he suspected that his wife was having an affair and that her child was not his, but his son's, he went into a rage. The most tragic part of the entire mess was that the son he killed was not the son who had fathered the child.

Jane's plan to convince the man that his granddaughter had witnessed the murder worked well. The grandfather, fearful, it seemed in his confession, for the mental stability of the child, wished to reassure her that he had meant no harm, that they were just playing. The problem is that the child had not been in the room, was not even certain in the way adults are that her father was dead, and could easily have been traumatized by her grandfather's words had she properly understood them. When her mother slapped Jane across the face, I cheered.

And while Jane was not busy tracking down the murderer, he was playing with a Cult Leader. The clashing of the two, and the clearly illegal, but not clearly associated with him, actions that some of the cult members were involved in promise an ongoing battle. I look forward to seeing another villain for Jane to butt heads with, particularly one who is not afraid to show his face, relying more on the inability to tie the crimes to him to protect him than invisibility.

Does this mean Red John might actually be caught? Or will there be two villains to pursue? Or are we going to be given some relief when this new villain is caught after a comparatively short time, while Red John continues to give us the slip?

The Pacific - Part 8: Iwo Jima

Alright, well, I'm just going to sit here and cry for a little bit before I have the heart to put my feelings after watching this episode into words.

Last week, we lost Cpt. Haldane (Scott Gibson), picked off by a sniper. It was horrible and sad. I didn't think they could actually make me feel worse about a soldier's death. And I was very wrong about that.

Watching John Basilone (Jon Seda) finally manage to be able to return to active duty after suffering so long as a hero in name, but only in action past, filled me with a mix of understanding and sadness. I never doubted he would return to the war, never doubted that he had any other goals. That he had lost his best friend and that so many of his friends had stayed behind to fight and to die while he was given so many favours and was safe at home never sat well with him.

So he returns and begins training the new recruits. He doesn't want them going in feeling as useless and unsure of themselves has he had his first time, and he proves himself a leader as compassionate and wonderful as Haldane.

Next, he meets a woman. A woman whom he considers superior to all the other women he has ever met in his life, Lena Riggi (Annie Parisse). Most men, when they meet that woman, they marry her, and John was no exception. He wooed and won himself the perfect bride.

And then he had a choice - he could go home when his term of duty ended, or he could renew it and stay with his men. And I knew the choice that a man like John Basilone would make. He stayed on. And he went to Iwo Jima. And although he did a wonderful job rallying his men, he was shot down the first day of combat, and never saw his wife again.

It's very much the tragic Hollywood story, meant to draw our tears. But it is history, not just a story. John Basilone lived once. He had a wife and family, and he had friends. And he chose to stay with those friends, to continue to fight for his country, for his family, and for his wife, and he died for them.

That fight was so long ago, it's harder to understand why he fought. He could have gone home. He could have lived. He could still be alive today, or at least have lived into this century. But he chose to fight. And I can't be upset with him, no matter how sad it makes me, because, while he was a man who could have lived with a lot of things, he could never have lived with hearing the casualty rates from Iwo Jima and not thought to himself "How many of those men might have lived had I been there to help them?"

Murdoch Mysteries - Future Imperfect, S03E08

I have run out of words to describe how pleased I am with Season 3 of Murdoch Mysteries. It is no surprise that we have received yet another excellent episode, nor that plot lines developed earlier are being renewed and characters known previously have returned.

While examining Eugenics in its infancy, this episode, filled with support for Eugenics from characters we question, such as the returning James Pendrick (Peter Stebbings) and the promiscuous HG Wells, and disgust for it from those we respect, such as William Murdoch (Yannick Bisson), also gave us a dash of romance and a pinch of renewed suspicion.

Murdoch continues to feel a very strong sense of doubt about the motive of Pendrick, and though he was able to keep his personal feelings in check while he investigated, they could not remain completely uninvolved. Murdoch did not cease his investigation into Pendrick's involvement in a murder somehow related to the newly formed Eugenics society, pushing ahead despite Pendrick's prominent place in society. This may not be the first time that Murdoch has ignored rank and power in the search of the truth, but it is the first time he took so much pleasure in the discomfort of the man he investigated. And although he determined Pendrick's innocence in this matter, his concern for the threat the man causes society lead him to offer his help to Mrs. Pendrick should she ever require it.

The case was an interesting study in Eugenics. A gentleman refused to allow his daughter to marry a man because his family suffered a variety of faults, from criminal involvement to disease. Although he changed his mind because of his love for that daughter and her happiness, the man he refused killed him in a rage before he was able to express his changed opinion. In contrast to Murdoch's outright refusal to ever sanctify Eugenics, this man fully believed in it, saying "Hang me and put an end to my mongrel existence."

But, however interesting all that was, I am certain that some of the viewers are only concerned with the romances which were in full bloom. Murdoch and Julia Ogden (Helene Joy) have been often seen together, going out. It may seem to some that their relationship is progressing without a hitch, and were it a relationship of the 21st century, that may be so, but we are looking at the very beginning of the 20th century, and there William and Julia ought to be talking marriage by now.

Murdoch was told last week that he would have to make a great sacrifice for love. I would argue that he already has, but that is not the point. And this week, we learn that Julia is missing something in her life, something to do with her love life, and Murdoch is not filling that void. What new challenge will our lovers face? Frankly, as long as they don't touch the abortion subject again, I'm sure I will love wherever this story is going.

And if you want a romance which seems even less likely but somehow more likely to succeed, we have only to look at the dashing George Crabtree (Jonny Harris), who spent the episode saving dogs, and the affection he has earned from Ruby Ogden (Sarah Gadon). What a perfect match she has found after all her chasing of excitement and danger - a man who is strong and steady and always honest.

Will we see Ruby again this season? And what about Pendrick? What case will he get tied up in next?